


Vinny on the move (again!)

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Vinny gets a life [28]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 06:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5775130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you want me to help you move?” Anton asks, when Thomas gets up the courage to ask him if he would be okay with movers coming by on Friday to pick up stuff from his room. </p>
<p>“Sandro’s—” Thomas starts, and when he can see Anton’s face start to darken, “Yeah. If you promise not to yell at Carmen all day.”</p>
<p>“You ask a lot from me, Vinny,” Anton says, straight faced, and only cracks a smile when Thomas laughs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vinny on the move (again!)

Anton eventually gives the place his seal of approval. First he walks around it — prowls might be a better word — frown etched on his face while Thomas makes conversation with the realtor. 

“Is he moving in as well?” she asks, when Anton’s in the next room. Anton’s shoulders tense enough that Thomas knows he’s heard. She’d switched to English for both of them as soon as she realised Anton didn’t speak French. Thomas knows that was nice of her, not to exclude Anton, but right now he wishes she hadn’t.

“No,” he says, thinks carefully of what to say next, “I helped him find his place.”

“Repaying the favour?” she asks.

“Something like that,” Thomas mumbles.

“It’s fine I guess,” Anton says flatly, in the end, which means he couldn’t find anything wrong with it, and is probably annoyed by that.

The house is better than fine — a sunny kitchen, appliances not brand new but not old either. The whole place is sunny, actually, big windows and light wood, polished to a gleam, smooth under his fingers. It’s open, too — the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedrooms are the only rooms separate from the brightness you step into when you walk in the door. The basement isn’t as bright, for obvious reasons, but there’s plush carpet, a warm coat of paint on the walls, and it’s cozy, the kind of place you’d be comfortable being lazy all afternoon.

Thomas loves it. Even so, if Anton had said anything, he wouldn’t have signed the papers, signed the twelve backdated cheques in exchange for a key.

“It’s very you,” Anton says on the ride back to the Complexe Sportif Bell.

“It is, isn’t it?” Thomas says. It feels right, like even his apartment didn’t, and he loved his apartment. Even though it isn’t like the house in Sudbury at all, it gives him the same feeling. He steps in and he’s immediately home.

Anton gets out of the passenger seat when they arrive, gives Thomas a fidgety little wave goodbye, uncomfortable. He’s still uncomfortable with Thomas, and it makes Thomas miserable.

“Do you want to go watch a movie?” Thomas asks. 

“What movie?” Anton asks.

Thomas shrugs. “You can pick,” he says, and feels a wash of relief when Anton gets back in the car.

*

“No longer homeless, Vinnylicious?” Sandro asks, when Thomas comes in after a movie, dinner, dropping Anton off at his place and promising he’d pick him up for the next practice, so Anton didn’t have to cab in to get his car. Carms is snuggled into Sylvie, who’s enduring it with the slightly amused look she always does.

“I was never homeless,” Thomas says. “I had you.”

Sandro clutches his heart. “Aww.”

Thomas sits on Sandro’s other side, and Sylvie snorts when Sandro immediately lets go of her so he can wrap an arm around Thomas and tug him into the pile. They’re watching some version of Law and Order, but there’s French subtitles under it. “French?” Thomas asks.

“I’m _learning_ ,” Sandro says. “I’ve seen this episode like five times.”

Sylvie grins at Thomas, and Thomas grins back. 

“Gonna miss you, buddy,” Sandro says, a couple minutes later, and it doesn’t have the joking edge his ‘aww’ did, that his comments often do. 

“You too,” Thomas says honestly. He’d always liked Sandro, spent more time with him than anyone on the roster except Fourns or Anton, Bruno when he was up or Thomas was down, but it’s been different living with him. Surprisingly peaceful.

“Moving Friday?” Sandro asks.

Thomas thinks about the rest of the season, slipping away so quickly, pulls out his phone to double check it. They have more away games than home, coming up, nothing too long, but no real stretches at home until the season runs itself out.

“Shit,” Thomas says. “I guess.”

“Vinny said a bad word,” Carmen says in a stage whisper to Sylvie.

Thomas kicks his ankle.

“And kicked me!” Sandro says, offended. “Too much time with Petrov, I say. Want us to help you move?”

“Thank you for volunteering me,” Sylvie says dryly. Sandro turns a wounded look on her. “Want us to help you move?” she asks.

“That’d be good,” Thomas says, then frowns. He doesn’t really have a lot to move, when he thinks about it. He’s got just a bag of clothes and necessities at Sandro’s, the contents of his room at Anton’s. He donated a lot of stuff when he moved out of his apartment, and other things, still hanging around Anton’s — a blender, a rug, things like that — he can’t imagining asking back from Anton, like he gave him something and then took it away. He almost wants to go out and buy a new mattress too, just so he doesn’t have to ask Anton to help him move away, like he’s rubbing salt in the wound. Instead, the next morning he enlists Sandro and Sylvie to come sit on couches with him, buys a couch and a dining room set and two mattresses — both for the guest rooms, he’s pretty attached to his, honestly, and he misses it — and him and Carms spend an hour at the Bay in the housewares section after Sylvie has to go to work. 

The furniture’s all getting delivered to his new place, but there’s barely room to store all the stuff they get, cobbled together from the Bay and Sears and Simons. Sandro bitches about Thomas making him carry everything the whole way, even though Thomas is helping, and he knows Carms can dead lift over 500 pounds. Because Carms has told him. A lot. When he points that out Carms sticks his tongue out and then threatens to carry Thomas to the car too, because he’s mature. Thomas sticks his tongue out back, because he’s just as mature.

Sandro’s spare room is almost impossible to manoeuvre, once they get it all inside. Sandro looks at it critically. “I’ll get you boxes,” he says.

“Thanks, bud,” Thomas says, and grimly considers how many hours he has until he has to move, because if he counts days he’ll panic.

*

“Do you want me to help you move?” Anton asks, when Thomas gets up the courage to ask him if he would be okay with movers coming by on Friday to pick up stuff from his room. 

“Sandro’s—” Thomas starts, and when he can see Anton’s face start to darken, “Yeah. If you promise not to yell at Carmen all day.”

“You ask a lot from me, Vinny,” Anton says, straight faced, and only cracks a smile when Thomas laughs.

“His girlfriend’s coming,” Thomas says. “I think she still might be convinced you’re a nice person.”

He does not think that. Someone foolish put Anton against Sandro in a Duel once, before Sandro and Sylvie were a thing, and it devolved so quickly that Sylvie ended up calling him, voice on the edge of hysterical. They were nearly at blows when Thomas came down from the workout room. 

They don’t like each other very much. Thomas knows people would say he’s understating it, but hate’s a strong word. He doesn’t think they hate each other or anything, they just. Don’t really see eye to eye on anything. Except being friends with Vinny and being Habs and being American, maybe, but they can turn that into fights too.

Thomas knows if he leaves Anton out, that’s only going to make things worse, and he doesn’t want to leave Anton out, he never does. But leaving Sandro out is rude, considering Thomas has been staying with him. Thomas knows Sandro would joke that Thomas just freed him up from labour, but saying you’re going to do something and then taking it back is something Thomas will never do, even if that’s making someone carry things for you. Plus, Sandro can lift over 500 pounds. He’s said so.

Thomas hopes Anton doesn’t throw out his back trying to one up him. Upper body stuff isn’t really the key to his repertoire, nor should it be. Sandro’s got plenty of stuff in his workout regimen that other guys don’t. Thomas doesn’t exactly need to hit the heavy bags, but for Carms, upper body strength is as important as flexibility is for Thomas. Thomas hasn’t ever thrown a punch, but he bets it wouldn’t be a very good one if he did.

They have a game at home Saturday, a game away Sunday, so time’s tight. Gagnon probably wouldn’t be impressed that three guys on his roster were doing manual labour the day before a back to back, but other than Thomas’ mattress and bureau, pretty much everything bulky’s getting delivered, and if Sandro and Tony can restrain themselves from insisting on doing it for the delivery guys, they should be okay.

Thomas thinks about what Gagnon would look like if Thomas accidentally injured their best D-man. He thinks he’ll make Anton carry clothes or something.

Early Friday morning Thomas lets himself into Anton’s place, gets packing. Around eight he hears Anton shuffle down the hall. “Want coffee?” Anton asks, voice still rough with sleep. 

“Thanks,” Thomas says, and Anton brings it up, helps Thomas pack, bring the mattress and everything downstairs so it’ll be faster when the truck arrives. Even so they’re behind schedule when they meet up with Carms and Sylvie outside Thomas’ new place.

“Fucking finally,” Sandro says. “It’s freezing out here.”

“It’s almost April,” Sylvie says. She’s wearing a spring coat, the same as Thomas, and they exchange a look.

“Jesus, Carmen—” Anton starts. “How are you from—”

“Don’t help,” Sylvie says.

Anton shuts his mouth and looks vaguely abashed. Thomas gives Sylvie a stealthy fist bump when Carms and Anton have started bickering over the most efficient way to get everything in.

Once they’ve stopped arguing it really isn’t hard. There’s three steps up to the porch, but other than that they don’t have to navigate any. Thomas helps Sandro with the mattress and the bureau, not wanting to recreate that Friends scene, though he tells Anton about his fear of Gagnon’s wrath, which is also true.

“Well,” Anton says, after a moment. “I guess I don’t want Gagnon to kill you.”

He accepts the next box, full of sheets, with a surprising amount of grace. 

They’re done before noon. All the deliveries are set for this afternoon, and the four of them sit on the living room floor — or what will be the living room, Thomas guesses. It’s just boxes right now. 

“Pizza?” Carms asks.

Anton scoffs.

“We moved stuff,” Carmen says. “I want pizza. And not that Montreal shit.”

“Montreal shit?” Anton asks.

“With the sneaky pepperoni,” Carmen says.

“That’s the—” Anton starts.

“You’ve complained about sneaky pepperoni before,” Thomas says to Anton, low enough that Carms can’t overhear. Anton glares, kicking Thomas’ ankle, but he doesn’t continue his sentence, either.

“There’s a good place in NDG,” Sylvie offers. “No sneaky pepperoni,” she says, when Sandro opens his mouth. “I’ll call for pick up.”

“But that’s far,” Sandro groans.

“It’s twenty minutes, you baby,” she says. “Come on, we’ll pick up some beer too.”

“You had me at beer,” Sandro says, scrambling up. “Vin pour vous, Vin?” He’s grinning. He thinks he’s very funny.

Sylvie muffles a laugh behind her hand. Thomas can’t help but respond with a grin in return.

“Mais oui,” Thomas says, giving him a thumbs up, and they head out. Thomas slides down the wall, lying on his back on the floor. He spreads his arms and legs, accidentally hitting Tony in the thigh and then apologetically patting it.

Anton leans over until he’s in Thomas’ frame of vision. He’s smiling. It’s not the first time that day, but it’s close. Thomas misses his smile. He rations it carefully, but he usually had one for Thomas.

“What’re you doing?” Anton asks.

“Goalie exercises,” Thomas makes up, goes through the snow angel motions.

“You’re a freak, Vinny Vincent,” Anton says.

“Your freak,” Thomas says, and pretends not to notice when Anton’s smile drops away.


End file.
